Myanmar says 3 lakh Rohingya verified for return as refugee crisis enters ninth year

Myanmar's military-backed government said on Saturday that it has verified more than 3,00,000 Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh as former residents of western Rakhine state, and that it will accept their return once security conditions improve.

The statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs comes as the Rohingya refugee crisis enters its ninth year. Hundreds of thousands of refugees remain in camps in Bangladesh after fleeing Myanmar in August 2017, when the military launched a crackdown following attacks by a Rohingya insurgent group on guard posts in Rakhine.

That operation drove more than 7,00,000 Rohingya across the border into Bangladesh, joining hundreds of thousands of others who had fled waves of earlier violence by Myanmar's military. The scale, organisation and ferocity of the 2017 operation led to accusations of ethnic cleansing and genocide from the international community, including the United Nations.

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, does not recognise the Rohingya as one of the country's 135 lawful ethnic minorities. Instead, it refers to them as Bengalis, implying they are natives of Bangladesh and are illegally settled in Myanmar.

According to the latest statement, Myanmar had verified 4,26,545 of the 8,28,824 refugees on a list provided by Bangladesh as of the end of July. Of those, 3,08,797 were determined to be former residents of Rakhine. The ministry said 1,13,507 people could not be verified, and 4,241 people were found to have been involved in what it called terrorist activities.

The statement said Myanmar will continue working with Bangladesh to receive verified former residents when the security situation in Rakhine becomes more stable. It also rejected claims that more than 1 million people were displaced from Rakhine, saying that more than 5,40,000 people crossed into Bangladesh after the 2017 violence, while over 2,00,000 remained in northern Rakhine.

Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed to a two-year repatriation process in 2018. However, security in Myanmar worsened after the military takeover in 2021 that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, triggering widespread armed resistance. Plans to repatriate the refugees have not succeeded.

The renewed chaos brought about by fighting between the Rakhine-based ethnic Arakan Army group and the military over control of the region in 2023 forced more refugees to flee toward Bangladesh and elsewhere. The Arakan Army now controls much of Rakhine after capturing territory from the military in recent years.

In recent years, poor conditions in refugee camps, steep cuts to foreign aid and the lack of safe prospects for returning to Myanmar have led to an increasing number of Rohingya attempting the dangerous ocean crossing to Malaysia and Indonesia on rickety boats.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said in late July that Myanmar had agreed to take back 5,000 Rohingya refugees currently living in Malaysia as part of a repatriation programme. However, an official from Myanmar's foreign ministry, Han Win Aung, told The Associated Press at the time that the repatriation programme was focused solely on verified Myanmar nationals held in detention centres in Malaysia, and rejected reports that the government would accept Rohingya.